Chapter 7: Shot Placement & Recovery Techniques
Setting Up the Perfect Shot

Every aspect of your bowhunting plan should center on getting a “perfect” shot. While absolute perfection is rare, you can come close by striving for perfection, which involves:

• Properly placing the elevated stand or ground blind
• Staying downwind when possible
• Using good camouflage and concealment techniques
• Using covering, attractant scent, and game calls effectively
• Limiting your movements
• Shooting within your effective range
• Applying everything you’ve learned in previous hunting experiences

Picking the Right Moment To Shoot

A game animal rarely offers the ideal target: poised broadside, within range, in the clear, and looking the other way. Therefore, you’ll need to practice to make more challenging shots. You also must learn to seize just the right moment to shoot. To take your best shot when an animal approaches:

• Control your desire to move immediately into shooting position.
• Wait for the right moment.
• Compare the eyes of the approaching deer to sweeping beams of light, such as the headlights of a car. Don’t move until those "headlight beams" are pointed well away from you or until they pass behind screening brush or trees.
• Make your move to full draw, and then wait until the animal stops near your pre-selected "pick-off" spot. (If you can’t move to full draw without exposing yourself to the deer, wait motionless until the deer has passed by before making your move into the shooting position.)
• Focus on the aiming spot over the animal’s vital area.
• Relax and take the shot.
• Continue to aim after the shot until you see the arrow hit the target. "Peaking" or dropping your bow arm will cause erratic arrow flight and affect the point of impact.

Experienced bowhunters agree that it’s wise to stand "at the ready" during the first few hours of daylight and during the last hour before darkness.

Why Shots Go Wrong

A number of factors contribute to unsuccessful shots:

• Shooting at animals beyond the hunter’s effective range
• Shooting at an animal that is looking at the hunter or is alarmed
• Poor shot angle
• Little or no knowledge of the game’s vital areas
• Muscle fatigue, which can be caused by holding the draw position too long
• Poor shooting technique or release, typically due to the hunter’s increased excitement level
• Shooting when brush or limbs are in the path between the hunter and animal
• Shooting when the animal is running or moving
• Not continuing to aim and focus on the aiming spot long enough after the shot
• Poor mental or physical condition that affects the hunter’s shooting ability
• Poor light conditions

A good recovery begins with a well-placed shot. An arrow striking an animal in a vital area will mean a quick death and a short trek to recover the animal.

Shot Selection Is Key

Good shot selection helps the bowhunter place an arrow in the vital organs. Shot selection includes choosing the proper shot angle, shooting within an effective range, and properly timing the shot.

Jumping the String

Animals have an extraordinary ability to dodge arrows. This attribute wasn’t understood until the behavior of white-tailed deer was captured on videotape and studied carefully. Deer can take flight with uncanny speed at the slightest hint of danger, particularly unnatural sound, including the sound of a bow twanging. This phenomenon is called “jumping the string.”

Prior to discovering this behavior, bowhunters assumed that every shot that sailed over the deer’s back had simply been aimed too high. What they couldn’t see without the benefit of slow-motion replay was that the deer had reacted instinctively to the sound of the bow. The deer collapsed its front legs and dropped its chest to the ground preparing to spring, unconsciously ducking below the arrow.

The problems with jumping the string can be minimized if you will:

• Limit shots to well within your effective range.
• Shoot only a quiet, well-tuned bow.
• Shoot only at unalarmed deer.